So today I woke up at the Zalle's guesthouse and went across to the main house for breakfast. Chapattis and tea. I had to ask for my tea plain since they make it with lots of milk here and I'm not such a fan, but they made me some plain, no problem. After breakfast, I went with Peter to the FIMRC clinic. Peter is a pediatrician/family practice doc from Yorkshire in the UK. He's retired and is here for about 5 weeks. He is super nice and I had a really great day with him.
We rode a boda to Khololo, where the clinic is (pronounced cho-lo-lo). Once there, Ryan (a girl, from DC actually) who is the clinic manager (she replaced Lisa when Lisa went to Matuwa) gave me a tour. They have the station system there just like we have at our clinic. Then, once we got an interpreter, Peter started seeing patients while I observed. After a while, he let me take their histories, listen to their hearts and chests, and even give my opinion on what they may have had wrong with them. It was really awesome. After seeing a bunch of patients you start to see patterns and get an idea of what is going on. We tested about half of the patients for malaria, but they all came back negative.
Like at our clinic, they stop for tea, but unlike at Matuwa, it wasn't like a mass exodus of staffers. We sort of (unspokenly) took tea a few at a time (obviously, they also had chapattis, my fave!). After tea, we saw more patients. It was really cool to talk to patients and get some more patient interaction. Peter was also really good at explaining stuff to me, and including how the treatments/advice he was dispensing was at times different from how we would do it at home. Lunch was posho, beans, and cabbage. Proud to say I am actually borderline enjoying beans now. Greens are another story, since the smell alone repulsed me!
After lunch it was a lot slower but we saw three or four more patients, including one young girl with a raging ear infection that was literally oozing pus. Peter had Rogers at station 4 clean it out, prescribed an antibiotic, and told her to come back in 4 weeks. He said the eardrum could have partially ruptured and that's how long it would take to heal to see if that was the issue. A lot of kids (like at home) seemed to have just a virus. However, there has apparently been a cholera outbreak in the area, so we were sure to be on the lookout for that, too. None of the patients seemed to show the signs (dehydration, lots of watery diarrhea), so that was fortunate.
Around 3:30, there were no more patients, so Peter and I walked down into Khololo to get a cold soda. We found a fridge, and sat and enjoyed COLD fanta! Awesome. A matatu came and we hopped on (in the front seat, which I find much preferable to being cramped in the back, also you can see your approaching death as they swerve back and forth across he road to avoid stones and potholes!)
Got off at Bunaporo, and walked back to the Zalle's. I just had a nice bucket bath, the kids are banging on stuff, the Senator brand beer (a new brand for me to try! I had the Pilsner Lager last night. Selection here is much more extensive than in Matuwa!) is chilling in a not-too-warm bucket of water, so it's time to just read a book and relax until dinner (which will probably be served after 8, like last night so I'm sure I'll be hungry by then). I'm reading Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom in preparation for the South Africa trip.
Alsoooo yesterday I booked my plane tickets for my Kenya/Rwanda trip and mom wired money to Rwanda for my gorilla tracking safari! Update on the trip is as follows:
March 29: overnight bus to Nairobi at 5 PM out of Mbale
March 30: arrive in Nairobi at 4:30 am (!) meet up with Alix (Erin from poastbac's sis who is working in Nairobi. Hang with Alix
March 31: more of touring/hiking Nairobi with Alix
April 1-3: safari on the Masai Mara, Kenya
April 4: fly to Kigali, Rwanda, 10:55 am. Check out genocide memorials/Kigali city in the afternoon.
April 5: SAM HALEBIAN arrives and meets me in Kigali!
April 6-7: gorilla tracking excursion and possible trip to lake Kivu
April 8: fly to Entebbe, Uganda at 3 PM.
April 9: Ngamba island chimp reserve In Lake Victoria, aero beach (beach on Lake Victoria where they randomly have old airplanes, like 747's that you can go on/in
April 10: ride back to Matuwa village with the next volunteer who arrives at entebbe late the night of the 9th
I am super stoked.
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